Cherry picking

Garry Stannus
Cherry picking must be a fun job. You just reach out in the sun to pluck the dangling, ripe fruit. “Oo!” it says, as your hand closes around it. “How nice: 79% of old growth forests already in reserves!” And another ripe one: ” Ha! Ha!” it squeals in joy as you bite it. “Tassie is 6.8million ha in size and 44% (2.9million ha) of it is in reserves!”
Francis, in defence of Newspeak, you told Gerry Mander [ Comments, ‘Freudian Slip’ / Dr Frank Nicklason, Jan 22, 2009 Here ] that regardless of old growth definitions, the area of old-growth forest in reserves is 970 000 ha (79%). I say that the area of old-growth forest unprotected is 230,000 hectares.

Thanks for the ‘Fast Forest Facts’ that you supplied readers with, Francis. However, your use of this table did not as far as I can see, contribute anything to a discussion on what constitutes old growth forest. The whole report “Second AnniversaryUpdate” …

[http://www.daff.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/236121/tcfa-report.pdf]

… smacks of bureaucracy and spin, where failures are unknown and progress is always being made – the future is always rosy. It’s a (Commonwealth) Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry document which reports on the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement, signed by then Ministers Eric Abetz, Malcolm Turnbull and former Premier, Paul Lennon.

Cherry picking must be a fun job. You just reach out in the sun to pluck the dangling, ripe fruit. “Oo!” it says, as your hand closes around it. “How nice: 79% of old growth forests already in reserves!” And another ripe one: ” Ha! Ha!” it squeals in joy as you bite it. “Tassie is 6.8million ha in size and 44% (2.9million ha) of it is in reserves!”

But there are bitter cherries, unpalatable, deeper in the garden. 230,000ha of old growth unprotected, 2,500 ha of it cleared each year. Oh, yes! And that 44% of Tas that’s in reserves …that’s not forested land area, not at all. The protected acreage of forest, even according to Francis’s fast facts is only around 20% of Tassie’s total area. As they say, ‘There are lies, damned lies, and statistics’. And squirrelled away from the fast facts are figures for $150 odd million for ‘support for hardwood timber industry’ and ‘intensive forest management’ whatever that is. Lurking in the footnotes are the spoiled, rotting fruits. You poke at them, wondering if they are pathogenic: This one needed glasses to read it, and even then it didn’t make sense [readers with qualifications in gobbledygook might care to translate]:

“* Indicates a figure less than original election commitment for this specifc area. To meet the original commitment would have had signifcant negative economic and social ramifications. However, with a reconfiguration of the new reserves, the total area of oldgrowth forest protected exceeds the original commitment by 700 hectares, which does not include any old-growth that will be reserved through the Forest Conservation Fund.”

Your nose warns you that such footnotes can hide inconvenient truths. What are they talking about? But before you can sort it, the eye is caught by …”Oo, look, there’s a nice little double cherry footnote, it’s all about that lovely orchard called the Florentine!” What do cherry-pickers Abetz, Turnbull and Lennon say about that? Los Trios Cherrypickers say “90% of all the Florentine orchard is either in reserves or is unavailable for cherry production!”

Well fancy that! Readers, isn’t this the same cherry orchard where 400 were arrested for just looking … at the forbidden fruit? Isn’t it? Failed election commitments? See you there next Saturday!